Latest news with #DexysMidnightRunners
BBC News
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Kneecap support: Kevin Rowland says freedom of speech is threatened
The frontman of Dexys Midnight Runners has said people trying to "shut down" Kneecap is an "overreaction".Kevin Rowland, whose band's hits included the 1982 number one hit Come On Eileen, said the controversy over the last week shows that freedom of expression is "under threat".Footage of a member of the rap trio Kneecap calling for MPs to be killed is being assessed by counter-terrorism police, and they have faced a slew of concert cancellations, with growing calls for Glastonbury to cancel their appearance there next month. Mr Rowland is one of the 40 artists that signed an open letter supporting Kneecap and freedom of expression through both bands label Heavenly Recordings. He said: "This is about freedom of speech and artists' freedom of expression."The independent record label said in the caption: "These artists support the right to Freedom of Expression. This is an ever expanding list. If you are an artist who wishes to be added please DM us."
Metro
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Metro
The hilarious tip to help nervous fliers during takeoff that actually works
Having a fear of flying is no joke, and being told that you're more likely to get into a car accident than a plane crash often does little to assuage your anxiety. But a new tip for nervous fliers has been doing the round online and people claim it actually works. Posting on TikTok, a user known as @elenaarco1 claimed that she had such an extreme fear, that before takeoff she'd have 'full-on panic attacks' and has had to get off a plane on several occasions. Elena said she'd tried every kind of calming method she could think of to ease her emotions, but to no avail — until she tried a 'ridiculous' tip. 'I came across a video of someone saying they always listen to a song that feels way too ridiculous to crash to,' she explained in her video. Fuel your wanderlust with our curated newsletter of travel deals, guides and inspiration. Sign up here. 'Ever since, every time the plane takes off, I put on Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners and honestly it's helped more than anything else ever has.' Thousands of people have liked the trick, with dozens commenting to share that they do it too whenever they are on planes. A user named @francescalc12 replied: 'Omg!! This is my turbulence song, I play it on repeat whenever I get scared.' While @danielleide2 shared: 'Party Rock Anthem does the trick.' Similarly, @emilyjane__96 wrote: 'I put Top Gun's Danger Zone on! Feels iconic on take off. 'Try it, honestly! You won't regret it. Pure rush of adrenaline and reframes the take off in a positive way. Makes you feel like a sick fighter pilot.' Others revealed they listened to Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield which 'saved' them, Supertramp's The Logical Song, and even the Coral Chorus Lobby Music from Fortnite. Is there actually any real merit to this tip? We asked a psychologist for her expert opinion. Dr Claire Vowell told Metro that it will all depend on the person, as treating fear is not a 'one-size-fits-all' approach. 'Fear of flying is common but there are lots of different reasons why someone would develop a phobia, for example a negative flying experience, fear because they've never been on a plane or because of anxieties in other areas,' she said. 'Fear of flying is treatable but it's not a one-size-fits all approach. 'Listening to a silly song on the plane may be helpful to someone as it would serve as a form of 'cognitive distraction', which stops the brain from focusing on the perceived threat. More Trending 'But it should be noted that this is a short-term coping strategy and doesn't address the underlying causes.' She added that for those in need of a more long-term solution, they should consider trying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which the NHS defines as 'a type of talking therapy where a therapist helps you to change how you think and act'. 'CBT is an effective treatment choice to understand the anxiety cycle. Learning how aeroplanes work is also a common approach. Common to other phobias, controlled exposure is considered the most effective treatment. This involves gradually building up to the experience of flying itself.' Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: Every country on the Foreign Office 'do not travel list' right now MORE: Jet2 is launching a UK flight to 'paradise on earth' next summer MORE: Major London airport named 'worst' for flight delays for second year running
Telegraph
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Joe Lycett's United States of Birmingham, review: this wacky US travelogue is bostin'
Bostin' locals, Laurence Broderick's shiny brass Bull, that sprawling Spaghetti Junction, bins overflowing with rats and rubbish as far as the eye can see… Ah, Birmingham. With the headlines currently full of horror stories about the Second City's grim state thanks to those pesky strikers, I can't think of a better time for Joe Lycett to present his delightfully daft new travelogue Joe Lycett's United States of Birmingham (Sky Max), in which he visits some of the 13 places in the US that share the name. Lycett 's mission in life, it transpires, is to Big up Birmingham. Never mind shiny awards or hit TV shows – the Solihull native is intent on singing the praises of his home town. In the wake of Trump's presidency – and the uncertain future of Nato – Lycett has had the genius idea (in his eyes, anyway) to recruit community leaders from all the different Birminghams across America to form an alliance. He meets mayors and council leaders around the country, signing 'Treaties of Friendships', trying his luck at shooting ranges and tucking into fried chicken as he goes. Across four episodes, he takes every chance he can get to reiterate Brum's supremacy over similarly-sized UK cities ('No disrespect to Leeds and Manchester and Liverpool, but they are all dumps') as he promotes his ultimate dream: the International Day of Birmingham, to be held annually on the 24 September. For all his silly quips, though, Lycett's mission is a heartfelt one – you can tell he loves where he's from, and for a city as dumped upon (quite literally, at the moment) as Birmingham, it's nice to see it getting its time in the sun. Against a fitting soundtrack of Apache Indian, Dexys Midnight Runners and Black Sabbath, Lycett heads to the 'other' Birminghams: a suburban idyll in New Jersey ('It does have the vibe of Solihull. It's quite well kept, and I bet there's a few Right wingers here'), a remote village in Pennsylvania ('With a bit of the Cotswolds about it') made famous as the site of a Civil War battle and a tiny township in Ohio where he samples a local delicacy involving bacon fat splattered on white bread (a snack that, fittingly, my own British Brummie grandma was prone to enjoy for breakfast in those halcyon days before all anyone wanted was avocados or Ozempic). At one point he bumps into Wayne, a man from Dudley who has swapped the Black Country for a job as a barbecue pit master in Missouri. Fair enough. Lycett rounds off his US trip in Alabama, which has been on his 'to do list since I was a kid'. As Lycett discovers, the two metropolises don't just share a name, with the Deep South city's contribution to history and culture largely overshadowed by their noisy neighbours (sound familiar, Manchester?). He concludes his Brummie odyssey back on home turf, having flown his new American friends (including his hilarious driver, Randy) out to the West Midlands for a look around the world's biggest Primark (of course) and a meal at a local curry house. This isn't Palin. But it's good-hearted fun, and if you're a Brummie too, you might just understand why he's doing it.
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘My job was making hits': Clive Langer on taking Bowie, Dexys and Madness to No 1 – and why he turned Madonna down
Given that he is the producer behind some of the most cherished and idiosyncratic British pop of the 1980s, from Elvis Costello to Dexys Midnight Runners and the Teardrop Explodes, Clive Langer sounds surprisingly bad at predicting what will do well. 'I was invited to possibly work with Madonna, around the time of Holiday,' he remembers. 'I went to see her at the Music Machine and I just didn't get it. I still don't get it.' So he turned her down. And when Dexys laid down Come on Eileen with Langer behind the mixing desk, he didn't think it would be a hit. 'I was completely wrong. I never had the faith.' It duly reached No 1 and became the biggest-selling single of 1982, just one of the many triumphs Langer had with production partner Alan Winstanley. Together they shaped a generation of British pop with David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Lloyd Cole, plus eight full albums with Madness across five decades. He also dabbled with his own bands, and is now a frontman at the age of 70 in the Clang Group, whose second album of sharp guitar pop, New Clang, is out next month. It reflects a 'compulsion to write songs, express myself and turn it up a bit louder,' Langer says over a cup of tea at his home in Hackney, London. He knows he's lucky to have done any of it. His Polish father, who was Jewish, fled the Nazis – 'They told him, 'Go right …' He took a left and never saw his parents or his brother again,' – later making it to the UK and joining the RAF, where he met Langer's mother. Langer's childhood in London put him at the centre of 'an incredible time for music. I dropped acid aged 13 and saw Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin in a pub called Klooks Kleek. We didn't have tickets to Janis Joplin at the Albert Hall, but we figured that if six of us tried to run in, four of us would make it – and we did.' Langer left for art school in Canterbury, where Ian Dury was a teacher. He formed his first band, Deaf School, at Liverpool School of Art in 1974, inspired by Dury's pre-Blockheads band Kilburn and the High Roads. 'We were very theatrical characters. A bit Sparks, a bit Roxy.' After punk arrived, 'we lost all momentum', but they had amassed a range of famous admirers: the likes of Julian Cope, Suggs, Pete Burns and Steve Strange. 'Kevin Rowland came into our dressing room in Birmingham before starting Dexys Midnight Runners. Then Big In Japan started from our road crew and included Bill Drummond who formed the KLF, Holly Johnson who started Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Ian Broudie who became Lightning Seeds. I joined [as guitarist] and some of the others went on to be in the Teardrop Explodes or Siouxsie and the Banshees.' In Deaf School, Langer had paid close attention to the band's producers, and remembered their techniques when teenage Deaf School fans North London Invaders asked him to record them just as they changed their name to Madness. 'I was very nervous when I went in to their rehearsal room clutching a four-pack of beer,' he admits, 'but as soon as I heard My Girl I knew this was very special. From then on every record was a hit. They were ambitious and sort of naughty. The studio petty cash might suddenly disappear and if there was any booze about it would soon be gone.' For the nutty boys' 1979 debut album, One Step Beyond, Langer teamed up with more experienced engineer Winstanley, soon establishing a way of working where Winstanley handled the technical side while Langer would 'rehearse with the bands, sort out the songwriting and arrangements and have an overview. You know, 'Do we need a trumpet?'' The wonderfully berserk trumpet solo on the Teardrop Explodes' 1981 smash Reward was recorded when 'there was a lot of acid in the band. So once it kicked in Julian [Cope] spent four hours disagreeing about a guitar chord.' The recording of Dexys' second album Too-Rye-Ay was just as colourful, with the band 'wearing all the clothes and doing the moves like it was a gig. I felt as if I was being pinned to the wall of the rehearsal room. It was that powerful.' Langer wrote the music himself for another classic, Shipbuilding, a Falklands-era hit for Robert Wyatt later recorded by Elvis Costello, who wrote the lyrics. 'I'd tried to write something beautiful for Robert, but myself and various friends all tried to come up with lyrics for it and they were rubbish,' he says. 'I bumped into Elvis at a party and a few days later he had the words.' Langer and Winstanley worked quickly. 'Once, we were in the same studio as Trevor Horn and we'd done Elvis's whole Goodbye Cruel World album in the three weeks Trevor spent on the snare sound for [Frankie Goes To Hollywood's] Two Tribes.' Simplicity aside, he doesn't feel they had any particular Midas touch. 'Our job was to give record companies hit records and we were just rolling with it. Sometimes you'd be a bit pissed and get talked into it.' Morrissey was another client, and 'working with him was brilliant, because he didn't write his own music, so I could either co-write the songs [including November Spawned a Monster] or shape them. But he would invite guests to the studio then disappear to his room. I'd have to look after them, thinking, 'Who are these people?'' Langer's career zenith was producing Bowie and Jagger's No 1 single Dancing in the Street and the former's No 2 classic Absolute Beginners on the same day in 1985. 'They were good friends, but Bowie ran the show and was always looking after Mick. 'Everything all right, Mick?' For Absolute Beginners, Bowie did the vocal in one take. He said, 'There's one line I can do better.' We re-did that and the record was finished. He sounded utterly majestic. We hung out. Skiing. New Year's Eve. With other people, he was always performing, but sometimes I'd get him for an hour or so and we'd just drink and talk. He was so intelligent, funny, knew what he was doing. After that I thought, 'Where do I go next?'' In the 90s, Langer and Winstanley mortgaged themselves to the skies turning Hook End Manor, purchased from David Gilmour, into the best equipped studio in Europe. Then, Bush's 1994 album Sixteen Stone shipped 6m copies in the US. 'It was Nirvana lite, but 14-year-old girls absolutely loved them. It paid off all my mortgages.' After later working with Blur, Catatonia and a-ha, and 'spending more time together than with our families', the duo's last full album production together was Madness's 2009 The Liberty of Norton Folgate. Langer also joined a reformed Deaf School but drifted further into alcohol, which he candidly confronts in songs on New Clang. 'I'd always liked a drink at 6pm to listen and reappraise everything with alcohol in me,' he says. 'Bottle of wine by the mixing desk – not too close in case you knock it over and fuck everything up. The problem is it's progressive, then it kills you. After I stopped working I got myself into a right pickle needing a vodka in my coffee at 11am just to feel normal. So I went to see someone for help.' Now three years sober, Langer is throwing his new energy into the Clang Group. 'I don't sit around thinking about what ifs but there's a tiny regret that I didn't do Foo Fighters' second album,' he admits. 'I was flown to the Capitol building in Los Angeles to meet Dave Grohl, but then I suggested that he should play drums on the record instead of the drummer they had then,' he reveals. 'I walked out knowing that I'd blown it, but I don't regret what I said.' This time, however, his instincts were correct: when The Colour and the Shape went double platinum he noticed that the drummer on all but two tracks was Grohl. New Clang is released on 21 February. The Clang Group play West Hampstead Arts Club on 21 February and Kazimier Stockroom, Liverpool, on 26 February
